Memories
More from the creator of Akira, now out on Blu-ray, Katsuhiro Otomo, with this impressive Anime anthology from 1995 based on his own short stories…
In many ways it’s rather a shame it’s taken me so long to get round to this film. The idea of animated anthologies has been rather sullied by The Animatrix and Fantasia 2000, even if the former of those two was still miles better than The Matrix sequels. (Will we ever forgive the Wachowski brothers for that? Maybe about the same time we forgive Lucas for those prequels.) There’s no doubt this film inspired the approach on Animatrix, even sharing a director, Koji Morimoto.
Only this is far more universally successful…
Memories takes three short stories by Katsuhiro Otomo, and together with colleagues and collaborators expands these stories: Magnetic Rose, a tale of a salvage crew who answer a distress in an extreme magnetic field call only to find a grand relic of a spaceship full of memories and ghosts at its heart; Stink Bomb, about a lab technician who takes what he thinks is a cold medicine, but is something far more deadly – at least for everyone else; and Cannon Fodder, where a walled city perpetually at war with an unknown enemy is seen through the eyes of a young boy and his father.
Koji Morimoto, who collaborated with Otomo on Roujin Z, directs the first episode Magnetic Rose, with a script by Satoshi Kon, who would soon be better known for Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. Greatly expanded from the original 29 page story, Kon adds the paranormal, ghost aspect to the work, as well as depth to engineer Heintz with a back story involving his daughter. There’s more than a little of Alien, the crew of the Nostromo finding a relic spaceship but not realising the danger they’ve put themselves in.
Despite being the most popular segment when the film was originally release, it now feels more stereotypically Anime, if not for the complexity Satoshi Kon brings to the story.
Stink Bomb, directed by Tenji Okamura (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Ghost In The Shell), was rather looked down on at the time – and yet it’s humorous take on a genetically engineered virus is typical of Otomo and his black humour that pervades both his short stories and greater works Akira and Domu.
The final tale Cannon Fodder is a far more expressive style than we’re used to from Anime, let alone Otomo. His interest in steam-powered gears and pulleys, rather than hi-tech computers, hints at his later Steamboy. It’s actually quite beautiful and in some ways I’d like to have seen him explore this style further. This tale of a city where their entire life, work and economy is set around firing a barrage of cannons against their neighbouring country, where no one seems to even know why it started, has hints of themes that would be explored further in Mamoru Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers.
As becomes obvious in the documentary put together for it’s original release, included on the DVD, Otomo was very conscious of using growing awareness of his work to create a work that would appeal to the West and not just a Japanese audience. (These same concerns filled Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell, released the same year.) Otomo had previously worked on two other animated anthologies, Neo Tokyo and Robot Carnival.
The documentary also makes it plainly obvious that despite handing over the directors’ reins on two of the episode, he held creative control over the whole piece. (Koji Morimoto even refers to Otomo as a ‘magnetic rose’ he and Satoshi Kon had to escape from in order to create their segment.
As with Ghost In The Shell, the film shares an early use of CG in Anime, though the filmmakers try hard, and succeed, in ensuring it doesn’t jar with the cell animation.
This is a solid anthology with no disappointing parts, well worth checking out for fans of Anime or Otomo.
DVD details
Distributor: Sony (UK)
Edition: DVD (2008)
Fine but not outstanding transfer of the film with quite an informative documentary. Nothing special really - maybe we're due some sort of special edition?
